I was shocked to realize I’d never read this story when I sat down to watch the Netflix show. I decided to read it simply to note every difference between it and the new show on Netflix. And I filled six pages back and front with notes.

The show is phenomenal. The book is good too. But they both have this glaring problem and that problem is so much bigger in the book.

The rape scene.

And yes, she rapes him.

Doesn’t matter which way you read it, or who you sympathize with, or that they’re married. The man was asleep and she woke him up with her goodies and got him to [you know] before he was even truly conscious. And he was two sheets to the wind drunk only a few hours before. Was she mostly clueless? Yes. But even as she did it, she knew what she was doing and that it was wrong.

And she never actually apologizes for it! He apologizes. Tells her she screwed up and leaves her high and dry (as he should), but eventually, he’s the one who apologizes. It’s not okay. At all.

It’s handled differently in the show. Still rape, but you have to actually look for it. If you aren’t quite paying attention it’s not hard at all to miss it. I did the first time around. I felt yucky and wasn’t sure why, but then I realized it. And man, what a crappy choice from the producers. They had a wonderful opportunity to shine a light on a subject we’re still afraid to equate with men. Frustrating. They didn’t omit it, so...small steps...I guess. I wish more people were pissed so they’d actually do something about it.

I reviewed another historical romance not long ago that I had read before. Many times. Whitney, My Love by Judith McNaught. I need to state for the record - Judith McNaught walked so Julia Quinn could run - full stop.

In Whitney, My Love there is a blatant rape scene. The genders are reversed so it’s much easier to spot. And frankly, that was a bully romance before we knew to categorize bully romance. But that book was written in the 1980s. It was part of the renaissance of historical romance. I give it a bit of a break because of it’s times.

This book came out in 2006. I graduated from high school that year. Historical romance had been established as a romance sub genre powerhouse. And we knew that rape wasn’t okay, even in fiction, so it needed to be acknowledged at the very least. In fact, this was near the beginning of the ‘rape trope’ that was used frequently as a cheap plot device to give heroines something to grow from. So, why was this acceptable?

Let me answer that for you. It wasn’t.

But the story around it is entertaining and well written so people just went with it.

Can we stop just ‘going with it’ when it comes to rape?

I get that there is an entire dark romance sub genre out there right now that often employs that kind of experience, but those authors are honest about it. Trigger warnings roam freely, proud to let you know what you’re getting into, just in case you’re not ready for it.

There’s no trigger warning on this book. There’s no trigger warning on that episode of the show. I truly hope that one day more people look back and say ‘wtf were they thinking’ about things like this.